Remember the poster of the kitten hanging off a branch that hung in some bedrooms in the 1970's? "Right when I learned the answers, they changed the questions." That's the story of my life. I thought I would write it down.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Behind The List, Part Two

68. Fallen in love and not had your heart brokenYep, still married to him.

69. Toured ancient sitesWhen Mom and I went to Paris, we went under the plaza in front of Notre Dame where they were excavating an ancient Gaul village that had been found when a bank was trying to build a vault. That blew my mind.

72. Gotten marriedSee #68.I've been shacked up with a couple people too. But I knew when getting married was the right thing to do.

73. Been in a movie'68. A terrible film I have had the privilege of seeing three times. I was an extra and spent the day in Golden Gate Park dressed like a hippie and dancing to John Cippolina. The movie is unbelievably awful, but not because of me.77. Made cookies from scratchBut they always suck. I can't even get the famous Mrs. Field's recipe to come out right. I am, however, good at my mom's brownies.

84. Performed on stageI played Hattie in the aforementioned Laundry and Bourbon. The first sound was my cue to both enter and speak. From backstage I was allowed to ring the doorbell that would start the action. On opening night I saw the slashes of bright lights through the windows in the set, took a deep breath, moved into character, and pushed the doorbell.

85. Been to Las VegasI've only been there with Zirpu. The first time we went, not long after we started dating, the person at the check-in counter looked at my ID and asked if my last name would be the same when I came back.

88. Kissed on the first dateHowever, not Zirpu.

90. Bought a houseWe had looked at or driven by over 100 houses, but when we walked into this one, we knew it was the one we wanted. There was a big family room in the back part of the house, and we both immediately thought, "Ballroom!"92. Buried one/both of your parentsDad died of cancer in March of 1974. He wasn't buried; Mom scattered his ashes over Half Moon Bay.

100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start overWhen Shobi-wan graduated we moved to Portland. It took me a long time to find a job, the first one of which was in a health insurance company. After a few months, the publishing company I'd really wanted to work for called me because the person they'd hired over me had been arrested for stealing credit card numbers when she was taking book orders over the phone.

104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survivedJuly 30, 2003

110. Broken someone’s heartBut a piece of my heart broke off too.

117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wildIf the football field at my college is "the wild", yes.

118. Ridden a horseWhen we went up to Tahoe in the summer with DeeKay's family, often we would go on a horseback ride at one of those places where you ride a horse on mountain paths. I liked that, but when No and I went to Camp Beaverbrook I liked my Western horse-riding boots much better than I liked riding the horses. I remember that all of the kids in camp dreaded "getting stuck with" one particularly stubborn horse.

127. Eaten sushiI first had sushi in junior high school when Mom and I went to Fuki-Ya in Japantown. I don't remember what No did on those nights, but it was our time to hang out together. I don't even remember much about those evenings except that they were "our time."

128. Had your picture in the newspaperRecently, because of a feature on the food bank's new digs and the Food Bank Director and I were both in the shot. My favorite one, though, is the year Shobi-wan and I marched in the Pride Parade in Portland and a photo from above of the Gay and Lesbian Chorus was on the front page of the Oregonian. I knew we had marched ahead of them in that parade and found us in the photo, even though we were small!

134. Read The Iliad - and the OdysseyI started to read The Odyssey after seeing O Brother, Where Art Thou? I hate to say I couldn't get through it so it's still on my list of "Classics I Should Read."

135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and readI read Giovanni's Room after I graduated from college. I found it full of self-loathing and so I didn't like it. Of course, I may have to read it again, but I think I will read James Baldwin's other books first. I read Giovanni's Room because that was the book from which Baldwin read for Calliope Records, a short-lived company my father had in the early 1960s recording authors reading from their own works onto 45's.

138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken languageI do this at the food bank often. In fact, I talk to people who speak Vietnamese, Cantonese, Korean, and an African dialect on a regular basis. Whenever I have a conversation with someone in Spanish, I start with "Mi espanol no esta muy bueno" and afterwards thank my 10th and 11th grade Spanish teacher, Sr. Crossley, wherever he is. You get a long, long way with good will and sound effects.

148. Shaved your headJR shaved my head for me about a year and a half ago. It was really cool and I felt so hip! Mom hated it, but Zirpu liked it.

149. Caused a car accidentAccording to the other driver, I had come into his lane on 280SB on the way to Tanforan Mall when I was a sophomore in college. I had originally tried to merge right and someone moved up into the space I planning to go for. Supposedly I overcorrected and went into the lane on my left. That's the reason I think I know what happened when the person who crashed into my car did so.

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About Me

A close friend of mine and her old friends call themselves the YaYas, after the book “Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood.” I'm a relative newcomer to this crowd, as I met Princess Words of Thunder in 1996, but some years ago she demanded that I adopt a YaYa name. I chose Princess Always Learning, because I always, always am.
I resolved that I would write every day in 2007. UPDATE for 2008: I will write three times a week. I'm storing it all here.